Oblique Tributes

Some tributes are clearly labelled as such. On Hunky Dory, David Bowie sang a song called Song For Bob Dylan. The music is in the style of Bob Dylan, the voice includes some of his quirks and he addresses Bob directly. However, some aren’t. The very next track on Hunky Dory is Queen Bitch, widely regarded as a tribute to The Velvet Underground. The arrangement, featuring a melodic bass line, a tight drum pattern, choppy distorted guitar chords, and an understated vocal performance by Bowie, resembles Sweet Jane but neither Lou Reed nor The Velvet Underground are mentioned in the lyric.

It’s the latter type I’m looking for.

My nomination for best Oblique Tribute goes to Brian Eno, of course. In 1977. He’d witnessed a New Wave act perform at CBGBs. He was so impressed he included a tribute on his album, Before And After Science, to mark the transition point from Before to After. The music is markedly jerky, yet funky, he goes to the trouble of impersonating the lead singer’s voice and the lyrics are peculiar. The title of the track is King’s Lead Hat, an anagram of the band in question, a band who were virtually unknown at the time.

Well, I never. I really dislike early Eno, all those weedy vocals, but it sort of works here. Did they him out for More Songs About Buildings and Food, or he them?
Oblique tributes? Well, clearly there is little doubt who Primal Scream were apeing in Don’t Give Out etc, but the 1994 version was pretty shitty. Roll on to last years original sessions, wahey, it bloody IS Exile era Stones.

I know what you mean about Eno. Roxy Music rocked my world in 1972/3, more so than anyone, even Bowie. I loved No Pussyfooting but Here Come The Warm Jets was a disappointment, a real let down. However, over the years, I’ve grown to love it. The music was jagged and weird in 1974 but, now, it’s pleasingly interesting and complex. The musicians who were happy to collaborate with him are now regarded as stellar and there are long passages where they can stretch out. The bizarre lyrics seem to make a pervy kind of sense. His singing voice is no worse than many others I listen to regularly and there are times I’d describe it as a warm baritone. The point is, the voice serves the song, often changing its tone and texture within one song. He’s fully committed to those words and delivers them with feeling. The songwriting is witty and clever. Baby’s On Fire still makes me laugh today after thousands of listens. Eno made music as though no-one was listening. It’s the audacity!

Flip forward 10 years and the Primal’s are still at it.
Riot City Blues pulls in the Stones influence, adds a bit of New York Dolls and adds a bit of Faces to the mix.
No-one really liked that album (except me)

Byrne and Eno met for the first time in May 1977. Talking Heads were touring the UK as support to the Ramones, and John Cale took Eno to see the show in London. Afterwards, Eno invited Cale and Byrne back to his flat, where they sat and listened to records. Among the albums he put on was Fela Kuti’s Afrodisiac, which would become the template for Remain in Light. “I was very excited about this music at the time and they were pretty excited too,” says Eno, “which was thrilling, because no one in England was at all interested.”

On the subject of Jansch and oblique tributes, I wrote and recorded this in the past few weeks. It’ll be available as a digital single (with two instrumentals in Jansch vein) fairly soon. It’s all about Jansch but doesn’t mention him. Buffs might notice a few clues in the second verse.

You’re very kind, Tigs. I felt that Bert, among many other things, opened the door for people with conventionally unattractive voices to say what they had to say. I suppose you could say Bob did that on an international stage a couple of years before him, but in a way Bob’s ‘get out of jail’ card there was the mythical out-west rambling hobo schtick (Woody and Rambling Jack had benefited from that before him), to which the nasal keening fitted. Whereas Bert was a bloke from the Edinburgh tenements, with none of that to access.

Alice Cooper – Desperado
In tribute to Jim Morrison (apparently) – right down to sounding a bit like him.
Although there is a conflicting story about it being a character from The Magnificent Seven
(Alice tells both stories depending who he’s talking to, what mood he is in, and how much of the 1971 alcoholic haze he can see through)

To be honest Tiggs, I thought it was a Stones tribute. I took her use of Bleeding Fingers in the title to be nods towards Let It Bleed And Sticky Fingers.
It was only seeing her live and hearing her state it’s her tribute to The ‘Mats that the bell rang.
Though I guess there is generational influence and ultimately it reachs back to The Stones.

The Bowie, Eno, Talking Heads connection continues with Bowie’s own DJ where he does a convincing little impersonation of the Heads with a nervy, mannered vocal a la Byrne, and also with the music. A bit of a laugh. Many would almost certainly live their whole life having played Lodger without being aware of the homage, although in 1979 the Heads were of course better known than in 1977. No doubt Byrne wouldn’t have sung quite like he did without Bowie’s influence. So it goes, around and around. Is DJ also a self reference, as in David Jones? Quite possibly. Oblique self tribute.

Horslips put out a Beatles tribute single in the mid 70s in disguise as ‘Lipstick’ – ‘Come Back Beatles’. So, okay, they named the subject… but the B-side, ‘The Fab Four-Four’, is a nice sonic tribute to the rooftop concert sound…

Here’s another Jansch oblique tribute that crossed my mind – a song written in tribute to a former (unnamed) roadie for the Pentangle and/or his long-suffering wife, Jo. The success of this oblique homage can be measured, perhaps, in the fact that even I don’t know the name of the bloke. A classic, though.

I love this. Usually when heritage artists return there’s a nod to a more contemporary sound, even while they’re trying to recapture old glories, but this sounds like it’s been beamed directly from 1985.

None more oblique* I would suggest than the Beatles references from Depeche Mode. New Life adopts the Twist and Shout vocals at the end.
The single Love, In Itself has a brief Lennon-esque “love love love” backing vocal. The 2009 single Peace has the same melody in the verses as Across the Universe verses. And lastly there is a drunken Martin Gore version of Yesterday on the internet.

Neil Young’s Tonight’s The Night is a tribute to Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry. Both died of drug overdoses a few months before. Bruce, the roadie, is name-checked in the title track. Whitten actually performs on Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown.

Having Garfunkel sing and, as per the song, harmonise on So Long Frank Lloyd Wright with Garfunkel oblivious to “the game” i.e. that it was about him, is evidence of what a nasty little prick Simon can be I reckon.

Does Mingus’ ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’ count? A doff of said hat to Lester Young (who always wore one). I see from Googling that it was later titled ‘Theme For Lester Young’ – but I don’t own a single record that that title appears on, but several that use ‘GPPH’…

Of course it’s not all good – We’ve already spoken ad nauseam about Bono’s hypnotoad-like power over Jim Kerr, causing him to return to the architechts of New Gold Dream unable to express any ideas other than “Bombast”, “Messiah Complex” and “MORE bombast”, but there’s also the example of The Boo Radleys’ Sice, so sweet of voice on their Giant Steps/ Wake Up! albums, discovering his inner Liam Gallagher raspy drawl for the subsequent C’mon Kids and Kingsize albums…